Gifting Cities

[Gotrilliten]

I was watching TMIT's Ragnar playthrough, and I saw he set up a badly placed city just to gift to Tokugawa to get him pleased. I am wanting to do the same thing with Shaka Zulu, but the city is redded out and it will not let me.

I wanted to know why that is and if it was even a good idea here.

I apologize in advance if there is any post that goes over the details of city gifting, but I tried and failed to find it.

Also, the city in question is Calcutta.

 

[Manco Capac]

@RedIfrit

City gifting can be seen on two levels:
When the AI has 3 cities or less and when the AI has more than 3 cities.
The first case is special as the AI will never refuse the city gift whatsoever the place on the map. This can lead to niche strategies.
The second case means city distance versus the receiver capital has to be taken in consideration.
Calcutta is just too far and the AI was set to avoid abusive city gift that would burden their economy. In other words, I'm not that stupid, indian guy says the crazy black guy with a nice hat.

I saw all cities are reddened. And Shaka has a huge number of cities. I suspect on monarch he is under economical stress. The in-game term (source code) is financial trouble. That link will take you ito the technical definition of it I took from the code. If the AI is under economical stress, then all city gifts are refused, whatsoever the quality of closeness. A way to help the AI to get out of such financial stress is to gift GPT, but over 6, it is not recommended at all as you are the clear loser in the trade.

At last, remains the second facet of "city gifting", which could be called better as city discharge: city liberation. It is simply a mechanics outside AI decision, so it happens all the time if the conditions are met.

Most important conditions:
Not much of your culture in it.
That city must be closer to the receiver capital than anyone including you.

To make the city discharge, simply do F1 and take that red fist buttom.

City liberation/discharge gives +1.5 per city. After one city, you get +1 (rounded down) and after two, +3. You get the idea. City discharge being outside diplomatic web will NEVER incur any kind of diplo hit like city gifting. For instance, in your game, Shaka is the worst enemy of Washington. Anything you give to Shaka (pure gifts or trades) are counted towards the worst enemy counter (which maxes out at -4). A city worth is really high. Thus if you gave Calcutta, you would have made a really really bad move because to harvest relationship with Shaka, you spit on Washington face. By settling a close city to Shaka, city liberation won't incur any diplo hit.

In the case Shaka is not the worst enemy of anyone, a nifty trick from city discharge is to discharge via the diplo table as a gift. Not only you get +4 for fair trades, but also +1.5 from city liberation.

And that covers all about it.

Thread killed.

BTW, I won't comment of what I have seen in your game. I have lost my eyes from sudden popping and got a sudden Alzheimer.

 

[Gotrilliten]

Thanks, I didn't even have the slightest idea of how the mechanics of that work.

BTW, I won't comment of what I have seen in your game. I have lost my eyes from sudden popping and got a sudden Alzheimer.

Is it really that bad?

 

[Manco Capac]

Have you at least understood what I said? No need to dig further, I mashed the bad code, so no need to disgest it. BTW, if you want to know distances between a capital and the city to liberate, count tiles like this:

vertically and horizontally: worth 1 point of distance
diagonally: worth 1.5 points of distance.

Don't forget to round down the result.
Do that with all nearby neighbours including you.

For instance, if the city for discharge is 17 tiles from your capital, but 18 from Shaka's. No city discharge allowed. The city is yours. Now, let imagine it is 16 from Willem's capital, even near a random Shaka's city, the city discharge will go for Willem. Capitals location are what all matter.

==============================

First most important tip: Never but never build research when you can build wealth. Why? Building wealth means your slider remains higher longer and research from other sources will benefit from modifiers like libraries and the hidden ones. Building research is not processed in any modifier.

Also, why are you still in tribadism civic? It's a powerful civic you know. That will soothe the angry citizens I saw in one city.

 

[Gotrilliten]

Have you at least understood what I said? No need to dig further, I mashed the bad code, so no need to disgest it. BTW, if you want to know distances between a capital and the city to liberate, count tiles like this:

vertically and horizontally: worth 1 point of distance
diagonally: worth 1.5 points of distance.

I think I understand. Is it that they will only take crappy, far-away high, maintenance cities when they have less than 3? Which makes it better to make to build a crappy city close to them so I can "liberate" it to them, so that not only will they accept it but it will also no incur penalties for civilizations that are rivals to the reciever.

First most important tip: Never but never build research when you can build wealth. Why? Building wealth means your slider remains higher longer and research from other sources will benefit from modifiers like libraries and the hidden ones. Building research is not processed in any modifier.

Also, why are you still in tribadism civic? It's a powerful civic you know. That will soothe the angry citizens I saw in one city.

These are things I know, but are too forgetful to implement sometimes.
I didn't take Slavery immediately and had the intent to change after I got done building a couple of things, but never did....
Same basic thing with the Research, except it hasn't been as long as I had just discovered currency. I really need to slow down and look over for noob mistakes like that.

Thank you so much for the information. I think I am going to try and load an autosave that came before me building Calcutta and remedy some of those things...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

First most important tip: Never but never build research when you can build wealth. Why? Building wealth means your slider remains higher longer and research from other sources will benefit from modifiers like libraries and the hidden ones. Building research is not processed in any modifier.

In theory, if you have banks (and notably these can be captured while science multipilers other than observatories can not be) and have not, as ZZZ would put it, "wasted hammers building universities for oxford", there will be stages of the game where research might actually win out over wealth, so "never" is a bit too strong.

In the early game you have libraries and not much else other than an academy possibly, so building wealth is easily the superior option and in most games will remain so.

There are also times where you really want a tech 1 turn sooner, and sometimes deficit research + building research can get you there when otherwise you couldn't reach it.

Of course, none of this is relevant to the question you answered immediately .

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

That 200 AD research, and that completely killed fish make me cringe.

But yes I build Banks more often than Unis, but I only do this in games where I go 100% gold in order to Rush Buy + Draft a stupid amount of Rifles + Arty. Fielding an army of 100+ units in like 10 turns is kind of stupid.

 

[happyturtle]

Ah, so that's why Toku wouldn't take my bait city a few games back. (That was the game where he went in one turn from 'We don't like you enough' to open borders, to asking to become my Peace Vassal. I don't normally take peace vassals, but I took him on just for gits and shiggles. That was a fun game. )